On fairness of scheduling algorithms for delay-critical multimedia traffic over the Internet

This paper presents the evaluation results of a simulation-based study on the fairness of packet scheduling algorithms to support QoS in IP networks. The simulation study aimed at validating the performance of our proposed scheme for QoS provisioning for real-time traffic in the context of Differentiated Services. We assume that traffic classification based on the application QoS requirements is an indispensable feature for providing QoS guarantees to a wide variety of Internet multimedia applications such as voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing due to the scalability issues. We evaluate the performance of our proposed scheme using extensive network simulation in comparison to other approaches. The results from the simulation studies indicate that the packet scheduling mechanism we propose ensures both the required bandwidth fairness and end-to-end network delay bounds for QoS-sensitive applications according to the specified weight ratios under various traffic and network conditions.